Guardians
by shektor
Summary: This story follows Tigress' journey to find the guardians. Set straight after "One Month Later".Read & Review.
1. Black TortoisePart 1

Po's P.O.V

"Po...we need to travel to the Northern Valley of Tranquillity." As I wake up properly and pay attention, silence fills the room. "What? The Northern Valley? Why do we need to go all the way out there?" "I'll explain on the way." Tigress jumped out of the bed and started getting dressed. "The way to where?" She didn't give me an answer, and instead left the room. "Tigress?" No-one replied. "She'll be back." I sat there for about thirty seconds, "She's not coming back." I immediately jumped up and grabbed my shorts. I rushed out of the room and downstairs. By the time I reached the front door, I had finally managed to get my shorts on. Lucky it was very late at night, maybe even dawn, and no-one will be awake. Once I was outside, I searched around the village and saw Tigress. She had already made it to the 1000 steps. I ran after her, and I managed to catch up with her around the 150th step. As we were running, Tigress did her best to try and explain her dream to me, but I couldn't hear anything she said at the speed we were travelling.

Tigress' P.O.V

I awoke suddenly, I feel Po stir. Then he opens his eyes and looks up at me. "Is something wrong?" "Po...we need to travel to the Northern Valley of Tranquillity." Po sat up and turned to face me, showing me he was paying attention. Silence filled the room as Po let what I had said sink in. "What? The Northern Valley? Why do we need to go all the way out there?" "I'll explain on the way." I jump up and out of bed and started getting dressed. I was almost fully dressed and Po was still sitting in bed, probably trying to make sense of the last few minutes. "The way to where?" I had finished getting dressed and left the room without answering Po. By the time Po had finally acknowledged that I had left, I was downstairs and almost out of the house when I heard Po call out my name. "Tigress?" I didn't reply and instead walked out the door and continued on to the Jade Palace. About thirty seconds had passed when I had gotten to the 1000 steps, at the same time I could just hear the sound of a door opening. It must have been Po finally leaving the house, no-one else should be awake at this hour. Instead of turning to wait for Po, I just began running up the stairs. I think I had made to the 150th step when Po had managed to catch up with me. As we were running, I tried to explain my dream to Po, but with the speed we were travelling, I don't think he could hear me at all.


	2. Black TortoisePart 2

We had both made it to the stairs and were running up towards the Jade Palace, I was positive that Master Shifu would have just gone to bed, and it takes him a few hours to fall asleep. As we were running up the 1000 stairs, words spoken as we went would be stolen away by the wind rushing past between us. We made it to the top of the staircase in a matter of minutes and quickly entered Shifu's quarters. Barging in was a bad idea and I should have known how Shifu would react. As we entered the room, I saw a small figure dash appear between us and before I could even warn Po, I felt my body freeze up and I fell to the floor. I watched as Shifu walked behind Po, who seemed unaware that he was being followed. Po stopped in his tracks. "Tigress?" With no answer, he immediately turned around with a swing kick. When Po said my name, Master Shifu had turned to look back at me. Unfortunately he wasn't watching when Po spun around. Po's foot connected with the side of Shifu's body and sent him all the way to far wall. Po ran after Master Shifu, but before Po managed to get more hits on Shifu, he ran over to me and released the nerve twists. "Po, stop." Po ran over to me and helped me stand. "Forgive us Master, we didn't mean to alarm you. But our news is urgent." Shifu walked over to us out of the darkness. "Come. We will talk in the Hall of Sacred Warriors." So we all left Shifu's quarters and headed towards the Hall of Warriors in silence. I was trying to think of what I would say to Master Shifu. "Tigress." I snapped out of my thoughts and turned to face Shifu. "I trust there is a good reason that you came here this early in the morning." "Yes Master. Po and I need to travel to the Valley of Tranquillity." I explained everything, Oogway's visits, the guardians, everything." Master Shifu just sat there taking in all I was saying, and when I had finished, he sat there for a little longer, processing all that I had just said. Finally, after what felt like hours, Master Shifu spoke. "Tigress, you should go tell Sumita what is happening. I will help Po pack all the things you will need to make it to the Valley of Tranquillity. We will meet you at the Valley entrance." "Yes Master." I bowed and ran from the Hall all the way home. I slowed down at our house, and walked inside all the way up to Sumita's room. I slowly opened the door and entered without making a noise, moving over to Sumita's sleeping form. I gently shook her, and she began to stir. "Mum?" "Sumita, we need to talk." She sat up, knowing from my tone how serious this was going to be. "What's going on mum?" "Po and I have to travel far away." I had started packing her clothes into a bag while we talked. "What! How far away are you talking about? And for how long?" I had finished packing her clothes into a few bags, and then turned to answer her. It's going to be a long journey. We have to travel to our neighbour Valleys; it will take maybe a year." "A whole year? That's ages. What could be that important that you have to be away for an entire year?" "The end of the world." After I had said that, I realised I should have been more thoughtful with my words. "What? The end of th… What if something bad happens to you? I might not ever see you again." I pulled her into a hug before she got too worked up. "Sumita, sweetie." I looked into her eyes. "I will come back, I promise. I have done harder things than this; all I'm doing is finding three people and bringing them back here." She was lost for words, but managed to nod. We walked out the door and all the way to the Valley entrance in silence. When we got there, we discussed what Sumita would do. In the end, it was decided that Sumita would stay up at the Jade Palace while we were gone. Just when I thought we should go, Shifu just blurted out "I'll miss you...daughter" when I heard that, I immediately pulled him into a hug. I couldn't help but break down into tears. "I'll miss you too, Baba" Hearing this, Shifu too broke into tears. Our hug lasted about five minutes, and I'm glad that neither Po or Sumita interrupted it. Shifu turned to Po. "Po, I want you to promise me that you will bring my daughter back unharmed" "I promise Master" After we all said our goodbyes, Po and I walked away. And so begun our journey to save the world.

A/N: My chapters are getting longer and longer, soon they will be around 1000 words a chapter. I hope all my fans can forgive me for taking so long on uploading this chapter. There are a few reasons. The next one will be along faster.


	3. Black TortoisePart 3

We had walked for hours, through numerous fields and seemingly endless forests. Po lasted longer than I thought he would when he finally asked, "Can we stop for something to eat?" We stopped in the middle of another forest. Po quickly set about preparing for lunch. We had sat down and were about to enjoy the dumplings, when my ears flicked back when I heard a noise from somewhere behind me. I tuned my hearing into the surroundings and I could hear an arrow being released from a bow. Immediately I dove forwards at Po, taking him to the ground. Just when we hit the ground, I heard the arrow fly over our heads. "Why can't I ever eat dumplings without having to fight someone." I jumped up and turned to face where the arrow came from, finding a female snow leopard holding a bow with another arrow aimed straight at me. I managed to get behind a tree before the arrow reached me. As soon as the arrow hit the tree, I rushed forward at the snow leopard. She dropped the bow and pulled out two pink coloured rings with three blades at the tip. When I made it close to the snow leopard, another snow leopard leaped out from behind another tree towards me, this one had green coloured rings. I didn't have enough time to evade the attack completely as I felt something tear through my arm. Getting back to my feet, I found myself between the two snow leopards, both of them getting ready to attack again. I looked over at Po and saw him fighting yet another snow leopard, only she had pink rings in her hands. One of the snow leopards rushed me, followed soon after by the other. I grabbed the first and swung her around into the second and they hit the tree behind them. One of the snow leopards got up and rushed towards me; I grabbed her wrists and pulled her head first into the closest tree. The snow leopard was knocked unconscious; I looked around to my second opponent to find she was tied to the tree, also unconscious. Ignoring that for the moment, I ran to find Po. He had a few cuts and scratches, but he was otherwise fine, sitting down, resting against a tree. Opposite him was a stranger dressed in a light cloak. I sat down next to Po, facing our mystery guest. I watched intently as they pulled down their hood to reveal the identity of our helper. Mei Ling. She came over and sat in front of me, and started bandaging my arm. She looked different than what I imagined whenever Crane talked about her. He described her as an upbeat, cheery person who always looked at the bright side of things and always had a friendly smile on her face. The person I saw before me was almost the exact opposite of what Crane described. The person in front of me, from what I could see, had scars everywhere. They were all faint and must have been there for a long time. She had patches of fur missing from her shoulder, it looked like she had been burnt purposefully. Her face had a very deep scar running from above her right eye down across her left eye, which had an eye patch covering it. I didn't know where to begin with questions, or even if I should. She must have caught my look because she turned to face me. "They are stories for another time." "Thanks for the dumplings, they were delicious. But I should get going; there is huge reward for those three in the Valley of Tranquility." Po stood up from his seat. "Really? That's where we're going." "Excuse us for a second. I dragged Po away from ear shot of Mei Ling. "Po, I don't trust her." "What? How can you say that? She was Crane's best friend." "Was. That was many years ago. I don't know what it is, but there's something about her that I don't like. We need to separate from her as soon as we can." I walked back towards Mei Ling before Po had a chance to protest. "Is everything okay?" "Yes everything is fine. We'll just pack up our things and then we can go." While we were packing up our supplies, Mei Ling was collecting the Wu sisters and placed them on a cart sort of thing. It would have taken us only a few days, if we took the path through the mountains, but Po insisted we help Mei Ling. And that meant we had to go all the way around the mountains. That used a few months, because we reached the Northern Valley four months after we had left the Valley of Peace. And even through all that, I never learnt anymore about Mei Ling. We stood at the entrance to the Valley. It was twice the size of the Valley of Peace, maybe three times. When we walked in, my attention was drawn to something happening over to our left.


	4. Black TortoisePart 4

"Hey freak. What are you doing here? I thought I told you not to come back around this part of town." "You said that in the Ming region." "Yeah, well, I don't want you around here either. Why don't you just leave our Valley. You don't belong here, you don't even have parents." I looked over towards them and watched as they were yelling at someone. My eyes widened in shock as I saw who it was. "Po, look." Po and Mei Ling turned to see what I was looking at, while I began walking towards the group of children. The young child tried to walk away, but the bullies just followed him and continued to torment him. By the time I had made it to the group of short children, the child that was being bullied had disappeared. I walked up and stood in front of the one I saw as the leader. "Where did he go?" He looked up at me in fear and, becoming instantly speechless, just raised his arm and pointed behind him. I began walking that way then, as an idea came to mind, I stopped and turned back to the children. They were all watching and listening worriedly. I spoke in a very scary tone. "If you pick on any more children, just remember, I'll be watching you, always." With that, I just turned and continued on my way. I searched the entire region, I believe it was called the Guang region, but I couldn't find any trace of him anywhere. It was nearing nightfall when I finally sat down to think of a plan. I set myself into meditation position, and opened my hearing to full potential in case of any surprise attacks. Too bad my next opponent immobilized me without moving a muscle, and he was at least a block away. While I was sitting, I got this strange feeling that something bad was about to happen, I opened my eyes, only to find nothing that seemed threatening nearby. As soon as I closed my eyes again, I felt water cover me from all sides, which then turned to ice. My eyes shot open to find I was now completely covered in ice up to my neck. Looking around, I only saw one person, the person I had been searching for all day, the Black Tortoise of The Northern Valley of Tranquility. "Why have you been looking for me?" "What makes you think I was looking for you?" He walked closer to me, with the ice was holding me still. "I've followed you since earlier today, when you walked away from those bullies." I was astonished, I had been followed all day, and I didn't even notice. "Now, I'll ask you again. Why were you following me?" "Okay, I'll tell you the truth. But only if you promise to let me go after." "Deal" "The truth is that you, along with three others, are going to save the world from certain destruction." "Ha. Good one, I almost believed you." It was obvious he was being sarcastic. He began to walk away. "Have you ever wondered why you're one of a kind? Why there is no-one else like you?" That stopped him in his tracks, he turned and stormed back up to me. He looked into my eyes, trying to see if I was telling the truth. "I'm telling you the truth. I can show you why you're here, and what you're going to do." Tears were now streaming down his face, he took a few steps back and stared at the ice. The ice suddenly changed back to water. "Okay, I'll come with you. We'll leave first thing in the morning. I'll meet you at the entrance of the Ming region, the other side of the valley." With that, he ran off and I walked back to where my day started, I needed to find Po and fill him in. "Tigress, where have you been?" "I was searching for the Black Tortoise." I looked around. "Where's Mei Ling?" "Oh yeah, she took the Wu sisters to the prison, collected the bounty money, picked up a copy of all the wanted posters and left." "Come on Po, let's check into an inn." We checked in, paid for a meal and settled into our room. Before I knew it, it was morning again. We ate breakfast, returned the keys and set off towards the far side of the valley. It was about an hour's walk, but we made it and found the Black Tortoise waiting at the bridge. "Well it's about time." Ignoring his comment, we continued on towards the eastern Valley of the Mists. Our next target was the Azure Dragon. Po turned to the Black Tortoise. "So, you're the Black Tortoise?" "I am a black tortoise, but my name is Zhi." "Po, we have to get along with him, he's going to be with us for at least another six months." Zhi turned to me. "So what exactly is our mission? Where are we going from here?" "We have to go to the Eastern Valley and find the Azure Dragon. Then after that we must find the Vermillion Bird in the Southern Valley." We walked in silence for awhile, so I decided to try and get Zhi to talk a bit more. "So, Zhi. How long have you been able to control water like that?" "Hmm. It was a few months ago now, four I think, just after my tenth birthday. It was really strange, I just woke up on my birthday and there was a new energy powering me. I learnt how to move water around and, after that, how to freeze and unfreeze it." After we left the valley, we were immediately confronted by a forest. We didn't know it at the time, but we were followed into that forest.


End file.
